IN MEMORIAM: Thorndike Saville, Jr.

Abstract

Thorndike Saville, Jr., a distinguished coastal engineer retired from the US Army Corps of Engineers, died 5 November 2014. Saville came from a family of engineers, with both his father and grandfather being accomplished hydraulic engineers. Saville's father, Thorndike Saville, Sr., helped pioneer coastal engineering in the United States, serving from 1930 to 1969 on the Beach Erosion Board (BEB) and then the Coastal Engineering Research Board (CERB). Saville attended Harvard University before joining the Army in 1943. During World War II he was a weather observer and collected meteorological data along the Atlantic coast and later in the Pacific, including New Guinea and the Philippines. After the war, he completed his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at Harvard in 1947. Then, he attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his master's degree under Prof. Joe Johnson using physical modeling to study sediment transport. In 1949 he joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working for the BEB. He studied sediment and water movement in the Mission Bay and San Diego area. The next year he transferred to Washington, DC, to the BEB facility at Dalecarlia Reservoir. Saville worked for the BEB until it was abolished in 1963. He was then appointed as Chief of the Research Division at the newly established Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC), which is now the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory at the US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center. Saville's research spanned a broad range of topics including sediment transport, wave generation, wave runup and overtopping, wave and water level statistics, rip rap stability, hydrographic surveying, and coastal inlets. Saville was named Technical Director of the CERC in 1971 and held the position until his retirement in 1981. During his tenure as director, the CERC produced the Shore Protection Manual, constructed the Field Research Facility in Duck, NC, and conducted a wide variety of coastal research. Saville's coastal engineering career also included leadership roles in professional organizations and awards. He was a member of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and served on its Board of Directors until 1988. Saville served as a member of the Coastal Engineering Research Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977 and received the ASCE John G. Moffatt-Frank E. Nichol Harbor and Coastal Engineering Award in 1979. Saville was a Professional Engineer, Fellow of ASCE, fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences, and longtime active member of the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure (PIANC). Contributed by Jane McKee Smith